JapanTruth.org

Welcome to our site. Here you will find information about the
controversial "Nanjing (Nanking) massacre."

The event has been an issue interpreted
differently by historians and journalists. Unfortunately, the
historical facts have often been held hostage to a political
agenda. That includes the photographic "evidence" of the "Nanking
masacre." Such fabricated photos found its place in an exhibition
on World War II displayed in the Toronto City Hall.

The photo
exhibition on World War II in Asia was held from November 27 to
December 2, 2012, in the Toronto City Hall Rotunda.The visitors
were shocked to see “the crimes” committed by the Japanese army.
However, some of the photos used for the exhibition had been
closely examined in the past by historians specializing in that
period, together with many other photos.

Here are some examples.

One of the photos displayed at City Hall.

Below is the comparison of two photos (excerpt from "Analyzing
the “Photographic Evidence” of the Nanking Massacre" by
Higashinakano Shudo, Kobayashi Susumu and Fukunaga Shinjiro).

The most frequently used “rape photographs” are Photo 29 and 30.
In particular, Photo 29 has appeared in the following
publications:
ZKH
Japanese edition of Timperly’s book
Chūgoku no tabi
Chūgoku no nihongun
QINHUA
Nankin 1937
SND
RON-YY
RON-I

The following are various examples of the caption to this
image:

“A woman who was violated by a beast-like Japanese soldier”
“A woman in Nanking after being raped”
“A shameless Japanese soldier took a souvenir picture after he
committed the crime”
“A girl who was stripped naked after she was raped—a photograph
confiscated from a Japanese POW”
“A girl who was humiliated even after she was sexually
abused”

Hata Ikuhiko, professor of Nihon University, however, found what
appears to be the original version of this photograph in a picture
book he had obtained in Taiwan. Photograph A, which was
originally in Tiezheng Rushan [Iron Evidence Accumulates Like
Mountain] published in Taiwan, was reprinted in Hata’s Gendaishi no
sōten.
[Contentious Points of Modern History].

Example 1:

Photo 29: First printed in RBS with the caption, “A Chinese
woman victimized by a rapist.” A blackened part in the background,
as seen in Photo A, has been whitened. Photo A: A photograph
included in Tiezheng Rushan, which Prof. Hata Ikuhiko discovered in
Taiwan. Something on the wall in the background was blackened.

One can easily point out the differences between Photo 29 and A.
First, a third person, who appears to be a Chinese national, is
seen standing close to the right edge of Photo A. Second, there is
a blacked-out rectangular portion on the walls in Photo A—a portion
of which is whitened out on Photo 29. One may wonder if someone
deliberately censored something written on the wall—something
perceptive viewers should not see. Judging from the way they posed
for the photograph, one may speculate that the man and woman in the
photo were a prostitute and her customer at a brothel. What was
blackened on the wall might have been the sign board of the
brothel, and the man visible in Photo A was possibly the manager of
the prostitution house.

Example 2:

Photo displayed at City Hall

Higashinakano Shudo, Kobayashi Susumu and Fukunaga Shinjiro
explain the photo as follows (excerpt from "Analyzing the
“Photographic Evidence” of the Nanking Massacre"):

(8) Poor children

The caption of Photo 106, which appears in Chapter 2 of RON-YY,
reads “Trying desperately to revive their dead children.” Movies
like “Battle of China” and “Zhongguozhi Shuhou” [Roar of China]
also feature this photo clip to illustrate the conduct of the
Japanese troops after the fall of Nanking.

The original version of this photograph, however, appeared in the
January 10, 1938, issue of Life with a different viewpoint and
caption. In the original, one can see a uniformed man standing to
the left of an old man holding a child. Judging from the shape of
the cap worn by that uniformed man, he was most likely not a
Japanese soldier, but a Chinese man. Life captioned the photograph,
which recorded an event on December 6, 1937 as “A civilian in
Nanking, in a state of extreme grief, carried his dying son,
wounded by a Japanese bomb splinter.” The presence of such a small
children close to the frontline, as indicated by the sandbags, was
quite unnatural, however. Thus, Life’s caption itself may not be
accurate. But the important fact here is that someone took this
photograph on December 6. Accordingly, this cannot constitute
photographic evidence of the Japanese army’s conduct after its
entry into the city on December 13. Since the editors judged that
the presence of a Chinese soldier and other civilians in the photo
may not impress the viewer with a tension-packed atmosphere, only
the portion marked with the dotted line in Photo S was printed in
RON-YY.